Rating Characters by In-Game use: Speedrun Edition

[Tide]

Re-reading old topics made me realize we do a lot of ranking topics or topics about how good characters are in games. So thus, this topic is born. Note that this topic is going to be a little different than the standard ratings topic. First, unlike the other topics where a lot of stuff could potentially be subjective, here's there's almost no debate on certain things. This is because for every run, there is usually a route, which dictates what you need to do, why and how to do it. This means, stuff like, "Well Kimahri is awful because you can send him down the wrong path" is not valid because you should be following the route which would tell you how to build Kimahri properly.

As such, you might wonder, 'won't people you use just end up being 10s and people you don't use end up being 0s?". Not quite. In some games, you have all members of the party at all times and giving everyone a 10 just because they are forced is a bit silly. Furthermore, it is quite obvious that some characters do more than others. As I am probably the only person who ended up learning speedruns more seriously, here's how I determine the overall grading. If you see a negative score it is because that character ends up being a complete liability (can cause deaths/slows you down because they are with you etc.) but this is reserved for very special cases. Negative scores will also only reach -1 instead of a standard 10 point scale because it is just mainly to illustrate how that character causes more problems by being in the party versus not. Note that not all criteria is equal:

Importance - If this character were not in the game at all, how big of a change does it cause the route?
Efficiency - How much time is saved because this character exists
Cost - What is the opportunity cost of recruiting/using this character? Does using him require additional complexity/work?
Stability - Does using this character make things more or less consistent in general?

Finally, a disclaimer. I can only provide definitive values on the games I do run since I know how the route works. Games in which I know the general plan and route but don't actually run, I can only speculate the degree of change. In addition, because routes can change, these ratings will only be relevant as at November 4 of 2015. That being said, let's get started!

[Tide]

Wild ARMS 3 - Pretty interesting overall. Definitive change for every character, but actually probably makes the cast incredibly well balanced as being somewhat lopsided as normal.

Virginia: 7.5 - Ginny gets worse overall but is still probably the second most important person. You use her mid-game for Valiant Gatling bombs and Mystic is just too good. Between extending carrots to make FP available for various tricks and doubling your experience with Lucky Cards, she's very valuable at making the game shorter. Also, her game best speed rules and is used several times to pre-empt dangerous enemies that could otherwise screw you over. She's even useful in the odd ambush as she's the first to go and can drop a summon before you lose another round. Where she loses points is being a liability early on where you have to slow down for her and make sure she doesn't die (due to EXP reasons), random smashing being not very valuable overall (some encounters she's not the ideal choice), healing being unimportant (you spend a lot of the game manipulating your HP for Valiant) and general lack of damage outside the mid-game.

Clive: 8.5 - Potentially a 1.5-2 point jump from normal. Clive is basically the guy who does everything because best non-elemental damage against enemies means a lot when most of your fighting is bosses! Even with bosses who have elemental weaknesses though, Clive is just a superior option to Gallows whenever you can get Attachment off as tripling the power of a physical > tripling the power of a spell. The physical can crit for massive damage and is shorter overall. AND Clive has Lock On too. Wow. Not only that, but Clive's stat spread is just so good with RFX as his only "weakness" and even then, not really sometimes because you can force manual turns to take advantage of it. Doesn't get a perfect because some parts of the game are done better with others and he's usually a bad choice against ambushes (due to slow speed and his MAG not being too strong).  I haven't even touched on Finest Arts to which he is the best user of to boot. Clive carries the team and makes things a lot easier too, otherwise you would probably spend a majority of the game needing to manipulate HP levels.

Jet: 5 - A 1 point jump from normal. Ignoring that being a warm body is a good thing, Jet gets to shine at a few points when you need two people who are fast enough to outspeed the enemies. His second highest RFX is no joke. Past that, Accelerator has some utility uses, does more damage in the beginning so it isn't complete junk. Worthless in randoms (worst MAG and his physical is not good due to some accuracy issues and low attack power) and the easiest to replace overall.

Gallows: 6.5 - 1-1.5 point drop from normal. Magic is just less used as it is slower. But don't let that fool you. In Chapter 3 there are several boss fights that are MT and Gallows really shines there. Getting Clive to shoot each one would be awful. Gallows though makes that painless by dropping a Zephyr and usually OHKOs most things. His high MAG is useful at other points for weakness hitting when Attachment isn't available and Extension is crazy important in the middle where most of the strategy revolves around dropping an Extended Valiant. Having the highest HP to abuse that helps too. He's usually the second best option in randoms due to the high MAG and using a summon to drop groups in a jiffy. But that's less important and does vary depending on the random. Doesn't see much use past Chapter 3 sadly, but Chapter 2-3 are the longest parts and Gallows is great at those points even if not directly doing damage.

Wild ARMS 4 - Virtually no change. But that might just be me and my playstyle being so accustomed to speedrun strats that there's no difference then normal.

Jude - 8. 2 point increase from normal. Joint Struggle/Apoptosis/Assault Buster. All very good attacks and you'll be using a plethora of Jude's originals to do more damage than normal. Randoms not being a thing helps him overall because it is generally harder to use those options without significant set up required. In the run, you might as well go for the set up being you don't always have the FP to one chain enemies and it just adds too much damage to ignore. His speed is useful too for building FP and his mobility shouldn't be completely written off as these two things combined let's him grab certain HEXes to ensure the success of a particular strategy.

Arnaud - 9. No change. It is very hard to determine if Arnaud really changes. On one hand, his damage is virtually non-existent against most fights. He's useful in that department if there is a weakness or leypoint set up that he can take advantage of. On the other hand, he was arguably never great at damage in the first place. Yet he's so important that if you removed him, all the fights would be awful RNG fests that rely on bosses spreading damage properly and Raquel to evade constantly. Slow Down is just way too important at both cutting enemy offense and saving time. His other support spells all have varying degree of use outside of Sleep. Jump is excellent for turn economy in terms of mobility and the evade is great for FP Building too. Arguable 0.5 point drop but I don't see it personally. He stabilizes the route and just makes so many things possible.

Yulie - 6.5. Potential small drop. Majority of the points are from FP Advantage. We already knew this, but it bears repeating. Past that, she gets some positioning options which are important and Quicken and Protect are useful in some niche cases. She's easily the most replaceable, but FP Advantage is just way too good and that's usually where she gets a majority of the points normally. Loses 0.5 due to losing the potential to MT OHKO randoms, but as in the standard ranking topic, I don't think that's as good for reasons listed (slower RFX, needs to survive, needs to be in the right HEX and enemies don`t immune, resist or absorb the element).

Raquel - 9. Also no change. We know the deal here. Intrude and Smash. The fundaments to many many boss fights. Not a perfect score because some fights are faster and more reliable than depending on Raquel getting a turn. But she's the core of about 70% of the fights I want to say, so yeah, she's kind of important! Granted, in the fights where she isn't the core person, she's awful. Just that when she is good, she is just *so* good.

Wild ARMS ACF - Also very little change. Outside of the bonus/temp characters anyway. Not sure what this says, but hey!

Rudy - 9. Good luck beating anything past the mid-game without him. Bosses are just so damaging and you are just so not designed to handle long fights with them. Good thing for Gatling Raid otherwise this would be a complete mess and make dying awful frequent. Not a perfect score because some parts before the mid to end game are best done with Cecilia and Jack, but still. Trivializes the question of offense later so yeah.

Jack - 6. Notably worse. His speed isn't fast enough like Virginia to really stand out and his damage starts tanking later because his MP usually can't stand more than one or two actions. Gets his time to shine early but even some late game fights are made easier with him around, so can't totally disregard him. Just in the grand scheme of things, he really is not important past about the 35% of the game. Also really depends on Cecilia too for those early parts where he is relevant, so alone, he would probably not even get touched.

Cecilia - 10. This one's hard. It's the Arnaud clause more or less. However, Cecilia gets a full point score for one reason and one reason only: Escape. Can you imagine needing to fight every ambush you get into in this game? It would be so amazingly awful. I also doubt you would even make it to boss rooms with all your cartridges intact and that's so important in some cases. This is only even possible because Escape is guaranteed and she has it. Otherwise, she has plethora of useful support options between Command Replay to doubling up on any one action, Quick to boost Jack's damage and turn priority as well as the odd offensive action/summon, which you do need at points. You can argue that she is a liability at points because you do need her alive in fights for EXP, but Escape is just so critical that I don't buy that one bit. It would be more of a liability if she wasn't around and Escape gets used as early as within the first hour of the game.

Jane - 6. Speed and Mystic. Both really good and you take advantage of both when she is around. Oh and the evade too. Too bad she's around for so little. But she's good when she is.

Magdalen - 6. Damage. The parts where you get to play as Jane would also be highly dangerous if he wasn't around (lolJanedamage to finish ambushes). The fact that he is usually the second best damage dealer and has Jack level speed helps too.

Emma - -1. No joke. Utter liability as it requires you to put one person in the back row (so lol if you get back attacked). So frail that she almost guarantee dies in a danger battle and contributes absolutely nothing of worth.

Mariel - -1. Guarantee death on ambush but won't ever cause you to be backed attack with only a single person in back row. Past that, also worthless and absolute liability.

Zed - 0. Scores higher than the other two cause you can completely skip him altogether. Go him!

Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria - Hilarious because the route barely touches the plot characters. So this one is completely upside down. VP2 is dumb.

Alicia - 6.5. This is only because if you don't get the optimal load outs, Alicia can still finish the game for you. She's just the inferior option about 95% of the time. She also serves as a skill transfer for Valkyrie but that's potentially a negative as opposed to a positive. Spells are worthless so no points there.

Rufus - 3. Massive drop since he barely gets used. He has three fights I think where he is useful: Balistic Rhino, Primordial Ooze and Evolver. All of these only come into play if you ended up getting Roland. Evolver is a toss up as to whether or not he even gets credit because while the optimal way uses Rufus, it makes that fight so dangerous and very, very difficult. You also use him as corpse fodder for Solitary Struggle and it takes no time at all to kill him off so 0.5 for literally being a corpse. This game...

Dylan - 7. This would be higher if he stuck around past Dipan in Chapter 4. As is though, the inferior option to Zunde, but he makes everything in the first half possible. So that definitely counts for something.

Lezard - 0.5. Useful as an emergency back up if you fail to get enough crystals to restore Sword Blessing and/or need additional grind fights to learn skills. Past that, he can serve to take a hit or two against Odin. Nothing else of note otherwise.

Leone - 1. Optimal Evolver strat with Roland. She's useless otherwise, but Evolver man. That guy is an asshole.

Arngrim - 2. 0.5 for serving as corpse fuel later on and 1.5 for being the fast alternative to ring out the homonculus fights. This game is dumb btw.

Mithra - 2.5. All three points are because he leaves the Holy Water of Mithra behind and trivializes the Kraken fight, which would be very hard without it. Objectively harder to rank him higher than Rufus because he's only good when he leaves.

Kraad - 5. See above. Impossible to rank him as more important than Alicia when the primary reason that he is good is because he drops a godlike weapon at the time of release. So it's not even so much he adds to combat as when he leaves, he leaves something good. You can argue this is higher because Kraadicator simplifies half the game, but eh.

Zunde/Aaron/Dyn Relic - 8/?/2. Zunde makes all the fights a lot easier and less complicated because of bigger kill margins. Aaron is potentially good but since I don't know his route, I can't comment. Dyn is worthless and only good as corpse fuel and being released for gems to feed to Alicia. Still more valuable than some other characters.

Sophalla/Arcana Relic - 0.5. Corpse fuel. Also helps for shooting enemies that would counter so it locks them into doing a ranged counter (nothing most of the time) as opposed to an actual counter which will probably kill you.

Jessica/Tyrith/Sylphide Relic - 0.25. Only half the value as the Sophalla relic because you should only be activating this relic half the time. Sylphide should probably get an additional 0.25 because of Free Item, but eh.

Valkyrie -7. Makes the final boss possible and trivializes him if you want to play safe anyway.

Everyone else: 0. Not used. Lenneth gets maybe 1 point because the Glance Reviver is very important.

Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time - The ratings are not so much flipped, but it becomes much more unbalanced than normal. Tri-Ace games, ladies and gentlemen

Fate - 6 or 9.5. The rating varies depending on the route you use. Fate is a 6 regardless because Blazing Sword trivializes some fights and is so important at making certain fights safe (Earth Smasher and Shelby). He gets an additional 3.5 if he is the lead because he becomes the guy who does all the work sans a couple of fights. Also, you use him for ICing the stuff you need regardless of the route so he would be important for that too.

Cliff - 5 or 9. 9.5 on FAM. Depends on the route again. And the mode too. On FAM, Cliff is a 9.5 no problem. On his own route, he's probably about a 9. Has issues with aerial enemies. Aerial Assault works to a degree but isn't as good as Fate's options. Charge also has no I-frames so it's more dangerous in some cases. On the other hand, Charge also comes out faster. Use him for a lot of IC stuff too. On other routes, he's primarily a tank. He can also draw aggro effectively with Fiery Tackle and Hammer of Might is still good at taking out enemies with weenie HP.

Nel - 2. Heal battery and not a very good one. Worthless most of the time, but can still be useful as a corpse to prevent your bonus gauge from breaking.

Roger - 0. Completely skipped.

Maria - 6 or 8. Maria's a 6 regardless because Power Up is important at speeding up a lot of fights. She also has a -10% Cost factor for IC which becomes important because money is so tight for it during the big second session. Also she's used to handle Robin Wind regardless of the route and would make that fight a lot riskier without her. She loses 1.5 compared to Cliff and Fate because her route is definitely slower and makes the second disc a lot more complex when it is not necessary.

Sophia - 0 or a 2. You use her for Thunderflare Stunlocking if you're using Maria. But that requires you to play disc 2 with a bonus gauge which makes that part harder and she's a liability in battle obviously until then. A zero on any other route as she is not used at all.

Adray - 4. Better than Nel at being a heal battery. At a potentially more important time too, but that is arguable.

Albel/Mirage - 0. Neither are used and don't cost you any time actively.

Peppita - 1 or -1? This one is hard to determine. On one hand Peppita helps out a lot on the opening 3 incapicitator fights. On the other hand, she actively brings up a box for recruitment and recruiter her is a flat liability due to EXP focusing and getting the EXP necessary. The two potentially offset to a zero. If you are on Cliff/Maria route though, the EXP focusing is less important, so I don't think it's as bad. She's probably a 0.5 to me but yeah, this can swing.

Shadow Hearts 3: From the New World - Also very lopsided, but perhaps not as much as normal? You decide.

Johnny - 8. He's Hilda assist button more or less. You use his superior speed for Entrance buffs for about 70% of the game. It can't be overstated how important Johnny's speed is since he can also serve as a Healer and utility person to hit stock. He only stops being useful about the last 10% of the game. Low Sanity is a major issue though.

Shania - 6. The one scenario where the harmonixer is not the best character. Shania stops being useful about halfway through when things are less susceptible to being poisoned from physicals, Hilda becomes available and you start transforming to Thunderbird primarily for stat reasons. Arc Surge is less important because you can really only make one good dominant caster as I don't think there are any additional copies of Entrance without going out of your way. She's still okay as a tank, but tanking in SH3 only really delays the inevitable. Needing to take time to transform is a downside too since she has no access to spells otherwise.

Natan/Frank/Mao - 3. They are useful when they become available, but are all pretty much immediately dropped as the next person comes in due to them having superior equipment. Natan may potentially be higher as I think he can take over Shania's role. But this is kind of a WIP for me at the moment. I think Ricardo is faster too, which would be more important.

Hilda - 10. Every fight after Hilda joins, Hilda is the core character at making the fights doable. Trivializes the final battle, Malice Gilbert and even Malice Killer to some degree, but at the cost of being somewhat frailish. It's SH3 though so that's probably hard to tell at times.

Ricardo - 5. He could be lumped into the group of Natan/Frank/Mao, but I dunno. LCC didn't mention that Ricardo was replaceable and I'm thinking its probably due to his stat mix. You don't really use his special abilities so its hard to tell sometimes.

[Tide]

These games I don't run but I know a bit about the route:

FF6 - Various categories, so it varies depending. For those most part though...

Terra - Massively down sans glitchless any. Morph becomes a non-factor and you don't even re-recruit her in WoR. She's not that important at any points with free character choice either.

Locke - About the same. Steal gets more value because getting lucky helps with money which can be a little tight. So maybe some slight improvement. Bad otherwise.

Edgar - Drop, but probably not as significant as Terra. He doesn't quite own the WoB since Noise Blaster isn't ideal for speed. I know the Debilitator does get used in glitchless any% and he's required in WoR, so he can't possibly drop that badly.

Sabin - Probably about the same. Maybe higher. You go out of the way to recruit him in WoR and he stabilizes the route to Kefka's Tower. Bum Rush is good in any% glitchless and it is virtually free in terms of time cost

Shadow - Definite jump up if any% glitchless, but probably a drop down otherwise. Temp who leaves more or less in WoB, hurray.

Gau - About the same for me. Most likely a drop for others who know the game and a boost for those who do not. Gau's useful in a couple of fights where the rages are readily available and don't cost any time at all. Not used otherwise obviously. Randomly select a move from random enemy mobs that may or may not be on the right seed. GGs

Mog - Definite jump up. Moogle Charm is godly guys. His battle performance could be absolute trash and it wouldn't matter.

Cyan - About the same I think. He's okay when you first get him and then is dropped like immediately thereafter, which is about what happens normally.

Celes - A slight drop, but not as much as others. High M.block tanking for the final fight and forced in WoR anyway.

Sezter - Significant jump up on Any%. Unsure on any% glitchless. Joker Doom/Reverse Joker Doom is like the whole route.

Strago - About the same since he's basically useless after the Thamasa portion.

Relm - Somewhere between a zero or a 9, route depending. The most important character in sketch glitch, is completely ignored in any% (yes, even for the Ultros 3 fight!). What a scale.

Umaro - Unsure. He's used at points in any% glitchless, but that could just be because the time to gear him isn't as high as the time needed for others. So probably higher than Cyan and Strago. Dunno though.

Gogo - Jump up, probably significant. Getting double of a character in this case is a godsend. Also, Joker doom mimic lol.

FF7 - mainly slots vs no slots

Cloud - A drop, but probably not too significant. I don't think he's a core character anywhere but you do use Cross Slash for paralysis at points.

Tifa - Significant jump up if no slots. The crux of your strategy with Deathblows and under Death Sentence. Probably a large drop otherwise like most other characters of doing slots.

Cait - Significant jump if slots. The crux of your strategy with his Game Over attack. The Laggyest option of all. Large drop otherwise.

Barret/Cid/RedXIII - Significant drop for all most likely since they are replaceable in most cases I think.

Vincent/Yuffie - 0. Not used for certain sans a category that requires all characters.

FF8 - Somehow makes Irvine the best character. FF8 is awful in a glorious trainwreck fashion. Even in a speedrun.

Squall - Drop, but probably still above average. Renzo is a negative sometimes since it can trigger a finisher when you don't need it, or fail to trigger one when you do. Otherwise, powered up Gunblade hits for when you need the extra 50% damage and is the anchor/utility guy in the standard strat for the final fight.

Quistis - Definitive drop. Useless after the first 30 minutes. Used for hunting Fish Fins primarily

Zell - Definitive drop. He's useful in cases where you need more damage than a Renzo and a Shot Limit. These are pretty rare because its FF8 and Junctioning is stupid. Still that's more than Quistis and the other cast members too.

Selphie - Probably a minor boost. A good fall back in some cases when the primary strategy fails for some reason. The End comedy option that is Richardapproved.jpg

Rinoa - Unsure. You use her at least once later so she's at least a 1 but my guess is probably higher. Most likely a drop since her stat lead is irrelevant and she has like the slowest attack animation.

Irvine - Significant boost. Fastest attack animation and a limit that you can actively control when to stop. Shotgun Ammo for multiple targets and Flame Ammo for the fire weak. AP Ammo is the big damage dealer that is cost efficient as well in terms of time. Somehow becomes the best character in this context because FF8.

Laguna/Kiros/Ward - Probably no change. Ward I think gets a slight boost because his limit is the fastest, is MT and can one shot enemies. Kiros might too as well for OHKOing the Ruby Dragon with a limit.

Edea - 0. By the time you get her, you have Enc-None so she is literally never used. Outside of one fight. Which Irvine takes care of. lol.


FF9 - This is Grefter the game. Worth of a character depends actively on damage versus real time taken. The Tideest of all rankings.

Zidane - Probably the same or a boost. Physical attacks are so much faster that it isn't funny. Killer/MP Crit/Distract and Counter as well as being your tank later on. The mages can't do any of this.

Garnet - Massive drop. Summons take too long, you never want to be healed later barring specific circumstances and there are very few multiple target bosses where she would be useful.

Vivi - About the same most likely. ST elemental damage is good at some points, especially since no one around him can do the same at those points. Dropped later on because spellzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Steiner - Massive boost. Is the crux of the strategy later on with Charge! as it forces all characters in critical to attack without provoking a counter or using their turn.  Deals plenty of ST damage before then too and has comedy option in Add Status in some cases.

Freya - Boost or the same. Physical attacker that deals good damage, specifically against dragons to boost to which almost no one else in the party can. Jump is used to skip Necron's death chain and can be used in some emergency cases for survival.

Eiko - Drop. See Garnet more or less. Less of a drop though since she's normally not even ranked as highly as Garnet.

Quina - Most likely a 1. Used to eat Lich primarily. Useless otherwise because needing to chip enemies = lol in FF9. The animations aren't slow enough for you? Pls.

Amarant - Boost. Physical attacker, throw is actually relevant now to boost and has a fast attack animation.

e.z. game rankings.

FFX - Also completely flipped upside down and non-sensical!

Tidus - About the same. Haste is good, specific action commands that can only be used by him and Sonic Steel - Flee is like 25% of the run because of encounters.

Auron - Drop or boost. Depends on where you see him normally. You use Shooting Star like once or twice and he has a couple of other moments before then. Stops being relevant past Bikanel.

Rikku - Significant boost. Without Trio, the route would be significantly slower. Probably more dangerous too.

Wakka - Drop. Most likely in the same case as Auron.

Lulu - Massive drop. Probably a 1. Exists for Bribe as other people are too far away or need to get other things. Useless otherwise.

Yuna - Massive drop. Goes from a 9.5-10 PC to like a 5 or 6 PC. Summon is still used but only once or twice. Out of party healing party for a little while  but past that is not used starting from Bikanel onward.

Kimahri - Significant boost. Goes from like a 3 to somewhere between an 8 or 9. His limits take out a lot of forced fights and he rebuilds gauge instantly on learning a new technique which is actually a critical mechanic that gets used. Is also really close to the Use Command, which is important

Use Command - Should be ranked since its like an entire character on its own anyway given its plethora of options. The most important thing in this run and should get a higher score than everyone but Rikku most likely.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Ooh, do SMRPG and FE7 next

[Tide]

I don't know enough about FE7 to comment. As for SMRPG...

Mario > Geno > Mallow => Bowser > Toadstool. Toadstool's healing is junk in this game since in optimal scenarios, Mario just OHKOs with Super Jump. You use Geno to boost as necessary, Mallow on specific bosses and Bowser for tanking/Fear. I don't think even on Smithy you use Toadstool, but I could be wrong. The recent introduction of the Peach chart changes thing and makes it probably more like Mario > Peach >=Geno > Mallow >=Bowser, which ironically is what standard rankings look like.

[Tide]

More thoughts and rankings! Although this time, going to take a look at bosses. They are the brunt of the puzzle in most runs so it's always interesting to see how you handle them when you have little resources and are constantly battling the clock. As before, I look at several different things, with the overall rating being how difficult it is to learn and pull off the strategy necessary to win. Oh, and because there are different tactics too, some bosses maybe listed more than once:

- Preparation: The menuing involved basically as well as the steps needed to get here if applicable
- Complexity: Understanding the mechanics of the fight, why you do certain things
- Adaptation: How often you may need to do things outside of the script, alt and recovery strats
- Risk: Chance of dying essentially
- Execution: How difficult it is to pull the strategy, if applicable

Gonna look at VP2 first since that game has an applicable rank on all 5 slots.

Balistic Rhino
Preparation: 2/10 - Really simple menu and is nearly identical in both cases. Need the Thunder Gem in the standard route so it requires more prep work. so Quick Kill is probably a 3/10
Complexity: 4/10 for standard method. Really easy to understand how to get the DA every time, although you also need to learn it with Rufus/Alicia and not just Kraad.. 6/10 for Quick Kill. Figuring out how to hit the correct part in the Quick Kill method may require some work.
Adaptation: 2/10. If you don't learn Quick kill method, there's very little to learn here.
Risk: 0/10. If you die to this fight...
Execution: 2/10 on standard, 6/10 on Quick Kill. All about the timing.

Overall:
2/10 for standard. Pretty simple. Move to his side where he can't hit you, drop Thunder Gem, then attack from behind. The only issue is figuring out the timing which doesn't take that long.

6/10 for Quick kill where you kill him with a Vital Parts kill. Requires specific positioning to enter a blind spot and then learning the timing which is much tighter than the standard route.

Primordial Ooze
Preparation: 1/10 overall. There's like no menuing to be done regardless of what you did before. Just a simple weapon swap if you got the DA on Rhino and are using Dylan/Alicia/Rufus
Complexity: 2/10 or 5/10, depending on whether or not you DA'd Rhino and have Level 1 Mithra. If either of those situations is not true, then you need to learn juggle strats, which isn't hard, but does take more effort.
Adaptation: 1/10. There's like only trick you need to learn really and that's respositioning Mithra in the end. And it is really easy.
Risk: 0.5/10. Half a point for his AI possibly targeting Mithra but really shouldn't
Execution: 1/10 on standard, 4/10 if you need to do juggle strats.

Overall:
1/10 for standard. Tank a hit, go behind him, then take down enough HP for Mithra to one shot with a Flare Gem. Get everyone killed sans Mithra. Pretty simple. Oh and use the Double Check.

4/10 if needing to Juggle. There is a chance you won't gather enough crystals if you're timing isn't on the ball since hitting 3-way Attack and Absolute Wave generates a ton. But this is still really easy overall.

Wyvern
Preparation: 2/10. Small menu that involves moving Dylan/Kraad or Roland into the party and setting up accessories for skills.
Complexity: 1/10. Once you figuring out where to stand for the fight...
Adaptation: 0/10. No Alt strats. Just ring out.
Risk: 0/10. Very very unlikely.
Execution: 2/10. Easy, once you figure out the dash to his side.

Overall:
1/10. *yawn*. Ring him out, easy fight. Who needs the experience?

Kraken
Preparation: 3/10. All three points based primarily on what level Mithra joined at since you don't do anything for the menu.
Complexity: 0/10. What mechanics?
Adaptation: 0/10. What alt strats?
Risk: 1/10. There is a chance for him to use a line attack and ninja you when you dash, instantly killing you.
Execution: 2/10. All 2 points for the dash mentioned above.

Overall:
1/10. Point primarily attributed to the dash and possible risk of death. Otherwise, throw Holy Water on him, win. And that concludes the easy part of the game. Enjoy the gateway to hell from this point on.

Evolver (1) / Evolver (2)
Preparation: 7/10. This is probably the most complex menu regardless of what method you do. And you need to do some sealstone moving around too as well as buying the right weapons and what not, depending on what you've rolled.
Complexity: 7/10 for form 1, 9/10 for form 2. Assumes you use optimal methods for both Kraad/Roland before. Form 1 is pretty easy to understand what is happening. Form 2 takes everything the game offers and throws it together in the optimal Roland route.
Adaptation: 8/10 for form 1, 5/10 for form 2. There's actually less adaptation in form 2 because usually if you fail, you will just die on the spot. Form 1, there are more ways to recover and more ways for things to go wrong so there's more things to adapt to here.
Risk: 8/10 for form 1, 10/10 for form 2. Form 1 can instantly kill you if he evades, but you can circumvent this a little. Form 2 is pretty much perfect play or no play.
Execution: 6/10 for form 1, 10/10 for form 2. Form 1 you can be a little sloppy and still recovery. Form 2, you better be perfect or you will most likely die.

Overall:
6/10 with Zunde for both form 1 and form 2. Pretty easy overall due to having more damage, although he also relies on having the Kraadicator.

9/10 if you got stuck with Roland for form 1 and 10/10 for form 2. The entire chain is probably an 11/10 since there are so many things to worry about and you can just get murdered even when playing perfectly. If you don't play perfectly, you have to recover perfectly otherwise you die.

6/10 if doing Dylan safety strats. Neuters a lot of the complexity in this case, and reduces the risk and execution values. Still can be a problem but is infinitely easier than optimal in this case.


Hydra
Preparation: 3/10. Easy menu overall.
Complexity: 5/10. Not too difficult to learn what is going on overall. Vital parts KO on a big part.
Adaptation: 7/10. Depends entirely on whether or not you DA's Evolver and how many times.
Risk: 2/10 if standard, 8/10 for True Takeshi. Black Crystal Poison strats not recommended.
Execution: 5/10. Just requires knowing where to dash to. Otherwise, it is not too complex.

Overall:
5/10 on standard and about a 7/10 for true Takeshi, primarily due to the risk of being at 1 HP and poisoned when not necessary.

Dragon Zombie
Preparation: 8/10. Depends on your load outs from before. You must learn Unholy Purifier if not Zunde and there are many different ways to get that set up.
Complexity: 5/10 - Vital parts kill, but pretty easy to figure out what you need to do.
Adaptation: 2/10 - Not much in terms of alt strats on needing to figure stuff out on the fly. You die if you don't execute properly.
Risk: 5/10 if standard, 8/10 if True Takeshi. You can still die to an untimely hit from Foul Stench and his SC if not doing True Takeshi. True Takeshi makes it such that taking any hit is lethal.
Execution: 8/10 - figuring out where to hit him after his head breaks apart for the vital parts kill can be a pain. Dashes have to be perfect or you die pretty much.

Overall:
7/10. Tricky fight either way and has a high demand to execute perfectly. True Takeshi makes this harder although even the standard way isn't all that safe. Not as bad as Evolver but still not an easy fight.

Ull
Preparation: 7/10 - Menu before this is somewhat complex. You set up Zunde/Dylan/Alicia differently depending on who you have. Getting the Dragon Rib is a 60% chance and that adds to the trouble.
Complexity: 5/10. Pretty easy to understand if you know the HP limit triggers.
Adaptation: 8/10. Lots of ways for this fight to play out wrong and then needing to figuring out what to do on the spot
Risk: 5/10. You don't really die to Ull when things go wrong. He just makes you lose a bazillion years. You can die if you get careless although this is more due to his lackey than Ull himself.
Execution: 7/10. Gotta play your cards right and then do the combo if Dylan.

Overall:
8/10. Pretty hard overall to do fast. If you are just looking for a kill he's probably more of a 6 than anything. But getting a fast kill on him is tricky and requires you to react properly and not make a mistake.

[Grefter]

The recent introduction of the Peach chart changes thing

the what

[Cotigo]

namedropping speed run jargon like anyone here is supposed to know what the fuck it means

the what

[Tide]

In the Japanese version of SMRPG, when you level up with a Star, there is an 8-10 frame window where if you open the menu and swap the character that leveled up with another character in the reserve, it causes the game to glitch out and causes the character who leveled up to inherit the stats and skills of the reserve character moving into his or her position for that level. At least I believe that's how the glitch works - might have some details off.

The results of the glitch allows you to transfer skills to other characters, which is normally not possible. In addition, for these additional skills learned, if you already have a skilled learned in the corresponding position, it will result in the inherited skill to appear on page 2 instead of page 1, but because the game was not programmed for this, your spells on page 2 have the same FP cost as those on page 1 instead.

The skill swap glitch is referred to as "Peach chart" because Peach is the one who has the most to gain. Normally, she only has Psych Bomb running off her S.Atk, but the glitch allows her to receive Mallow's Shocker as well as Geno's Geno Blast, using them more efficiently due to the page scroll error (noted above) and having higher base S.Atk in Mallow's case. This along with her above average speed makes her much better as an offensive mage so she's able to contribute pretty notably.

[Grefter]

Okay that's pretty rad actually.

[Cotigo]

Okay that's pretty rad actually.

Yeah from the name I was thinking it was some route to maximize level up bonuses but that is so much cooler

[Tide]

It makes experience management much more important since you need to align the levels properly to pass the necessary skills to Peach. The big damage source is still Super Jumps, but yeah, it was one of the more recent changes and caused a reroute (not a significant one, but still different).

Just continuing on and gonna finish VP2 I guess. Since Grefter and Zenny pointed out that I should try to describe things more, some jargon that I may be referring to:

- Safe strat: Usually a slower but more consistent and less risky method of winning a fight.
- True Takeshi: Takeshi is a nico streamer who has ridiculous VP2 times because he plays the game in the absolute fastest but also riskiest way possible. For frame of reference, he spends about 70% of the game poisoned and at 1 HP, where if he makes even a slight error, he dies. This just refers to how difficult something is if you do it in the most optimal method that he has performed.

Walter & Gyne
Preparation: 2/10 - You swap out some characters or revive a dummy unit and grab Sword blessing. Really easy.
Complexity: 5/10 - Pretty easy to pick up on what to do regardless of if you're stuck with Zunde or Dylan.
Adaptation: 6/10 - For the most part, there isn't a whole lot of change. The main randomness is what happens if you can't approach Walter first.
Risk: 7.5/10 - Pretty dangerous since there are two and Gyne can instant kill you if you're not positioned properly
Execution: 7.5/10 - Another case where you either execute properly or you die. Just the execution here is easier than against Evolver.

Overall: 7/10
You dash to  the upper corner with Dylan/Alicia/Zunde and sacrifice someone to eat up Walter's attack, then kill him and Gyne afterwards. This fight is dangerous because your dash to the corner must be far in otherwise Gyne can instantly kill you. It sucks and the only way to really understand it is to practice it. Pretty simple though once you get that down.

Hrist and Arngim
Preparation: 0/10. No Menuing involved before hand. Easy.
Complexity: 7/10. Depends on what items you have available.
Adaptation: 0/10. All things considered, there is only one way to do this. Another "execute or die" although again, not Evolver level silly (but then nothing is)
Risk: 2/10 if doing my adapted safe strats. 7/10 if True Takeshi method. Charge Break makes this fight in general really easy. True Takeshi has a risk where if Hrist is too close to one side, you need to be perfect with your dash or you will get caught and due. 
Execution: 4/10 if safe strats. 7/10 if True Takeshi. All because of that one dash too!

Overall:
4/10 for safe strats. The extra charge break lets you reposition your dash in case of Hrist's AI movement being somewhat unfavourable and you can still reposition after. It's pretty forgiving. You need to actually dash into her to eat the loss. .

6/10 if True Takeshi. Easier than the mages IMO because you can get lucky and Hrist just opens up her back at times. But the times when she doesn't and moves too close to where you want to slip through - that's when it gets hard.

Arectaris
Preparation: 7/10. Another decently complex menu which includes a shop before. Alicia having a certain strength value may be important
Complexity: 7/10. HP threshold for Great Magic, Angel Rain, crystal targets...
Adaptation: 8/10. Several ways this can play out because the hit boxes are so wonky. You can be directly on top of his targeting area and some spells will just miss a target or two.
Risk: 8/10. Pretty dangerous overall. You're supposed to get everyone killed, but even when that doesn't happen, this is still dangerous because he can Great Magic you if you pass his threahold.  Evading the targeting zone is impossible if you are too close due to his turn speed.
Execution: 7/10. Not as tough as some other fights, but still demanding. You need to be able to tackle his back and of course, position yourself properly.

Overall:
8/10. Nasty regardless of character. The big problem is great magic, but his attacks occasionally missing targets does you no favours since it alters the boost on Solitary Struggle. Really have to play this one out a lot too to understand how to react to it.

Bitfrost Gaunlet (Aesir Guards x2, Dimensional Beast)
Preparation: 0/10 with Zunde. No menuing sans equipping a new weapon. 5/10 on Alicia route. Equip Arectais sword on your Great Swordsmen if not Zunde and release for Fencer Familiarities and then feed to Alicia. The harder part (and most of this score) comes from needing to get the Aroundlight sword, which albeit is Alicia only.
Complexity: 4/10. The guards get a zero since they are easily dispatched. Dimensional beast gets a 4 due to the fact that there is a harder faster method and an easier but slower method. And you want to hit the right part for this fight.
Adaptation: 2/10. Not much change in strategy sans Dimension Beast and the alt strat is not that different.
Risk: 5/10. You die if you get greedy or you get sloppy with dashing. Dimension Beast can wreck you if you got a vital parts KO and fail though.
Execution: 5/10. See above. Mostly Dimensional Beast contributes to this score.

Overall:
3/10. You can die certainly, but you can play this one safe and the time loss is not too bad. Dimensional Beast may take a couple of tries to figure out, but he's an easy obstacle for this second half of the game.

Heimdall
Preparation: 4/10. Attack order change and heal up to full HP. If you got hit by Angel Ring, you use and Idun's Apple. Skip that if you do True Takeshi method.
Complexity: 4/10 normally. 7/10 for True Takeshi. Took me awhile to figure this out.
Adaptation: 6/10. You're kind of on your own after the first attack, but its pretty simple to figure out what you're trying to do and then adjust for it
Risk: 5/10 normally. Standard mis-timed dashes leading to deaths, although this one requires you to be careful for sure. 9/10 for True Takeshi. Now you have to time the attacks properly and hit the right zones in a game where you have little control over this.
Execution: 8/10. Yep, another execute or die fight and this one is tougher than the others so far since you get to do this multiple times if you don't get a quick kill.

Overall:
5/10 for normal strat. You dash behind him, attack then Charge Break. If you see an AoE, you can take it in theory. Soft dash back in because his support will be very close to him, then attack. Dash to retreat afterwards, repeat until dead. Not bad all things considered but you may need to do this up to three times, so that's many chances to fail.

8.5/10 if going for True Takeshi strat, where you fight this at 1 HP and poisoned. Now you have to use Cross Slash to push Heimdall far away enough that he can't kill you with his AoE after you attack. This is legit hard and not worth it IMO since you only save a little menuing time and trade a 6% stat boost for a whole lot of unnecessary risk.

Odin
Preparation: 5/10. Decent sized menu. Equip Mag Slayer if available, then revive a second sacrificial unit and make sure they can break defense.
Complexity: 7/10. This is primarily due to Odin's hitboxes, which to this day, I still cannot figure out. The two character routes are pretty different here too.
Adaptation: 8/10. Changes depending if you have Magician Slayer. Lots of chances for someone to die when they shouldn't and depending on what Odin opens off with, you need to do different things.
Risk: 10/10. Odin has eyes in the back of his head and can seemingly evade when knocked to the ground, even in a combo. It's pretty dumb.
Execution: 5/10. The execution portion primarily relates to tight dashes if you want to play more aggressively. Otherwise, you just need to know that you attack with a long ranged person first so his facing doesn't change if he evades. Zunde may actually be more complicated because he actually needs to do a combo.

Overall:
9/10. A hard fight, but primarily due to random BS that makes no sense. Between Odin's cheating and his unexplanable hitboxes, this is not a fun fight and you can lose a lot of time from it too.

[Tide]

Just finishing up VP2 boss ranks.

Freya
Preparation: 3/10 - Swap out an accessory for the new power bangle and make sure one extra person is alive. Alicia requires a change in attacks but Zunde does not.
Complexity: 2/10. Pretty basic.
Adaptation: 5/10. All dependent on whether or not you miss with the first attack. Otherwise you poke Freya and she pretty much dies.
Risk: 4/10. Primarily attributed to her possible evading.
Execution: 3/10. Pretty easy.

Overall:
3/10. Oh hey a free fight late in the game. Enjoy because its about the only one you get in the second half.

Gigantic Troll
Preparation: 4/10. Swap in Arngrim, grab Sword blessing and weapon swap if using Alicia. Zunde doesn't need to do anything but reviving someone is a good safety measure.
Complexity: 8/10. Figuring out the correct way to do this the first time drove me nuts. Devloping subsequent contingencies hasn't been easy either due to how you primarily kill it
Adaptation: 7/10. Depends on how you want to go about it. There's some various approaches you can take although most of them are similar for the most part.
Risk: 3/10. Sans getting repeated run failures, this is pretty simple. 5/10 I guess if you do Argrim safety strats but still pretty easy.
Execution: 5/10 if doing safe method, 7/10 if doing modified Takeshi method. 9/10 for True Takeshi method. It all comes down to how you want to kill Gigantic troll: Safe, moderate or risky?

Overall:
8/10. Harder than Freya for sure to cleanly execute. The idea is to get behind Gigantic Troll by clipping through the glove on his left hand, then use 4 attacks to target his chest and get a kill through vitals. This is very hard if you are doing the true Takeshi method as there is no leeway for error, You only get 4 attacks and you have to land all 4. If you miss or you try to reset, the skeletons will most likely spwan ninja reinforcements and kill you forcing to escape and start over.

6/10 if doing a modified Takeshi strat which is similar, but instead you take out both skeletons first. Then before diving, you use a Might Potion if he's using an attack that has a wide area. This makes it such that if the glove clip fails, you won't instantly die and you move faster than him anyway. If you get killed, Arngrim can be used as a back up person to run and revive Alicia.

5/10 if using Zunde or doing safe strats. Safe strats with Alicia just means baiting him out from his circle, which means you don't deal with the glove clip at all and you kill him through direct damage instead of vitals. Slow, but very low chance of screwing up and the points come primarily from doing the chain dashes in the beginning. Zunde doesn't have to worry about any of this because he has Giant Killer and better mults so he just kills with enough damage.

Vampire Lord - N/A; he's skipped now Probably another 7/10 before hand.


Homonculous Duo
Preparation: 1/10. No menu outside of swapping weapons if you are Zunde.
Complexity: 4/10. Easy to figure out what to do, but learning all the angles where you can launch and where you can't can take some time because the hitboxes are bizarre as hell.
Adaptation: 5/10. There's an alt strat where you use Alicia to kill instead of ringing out, but that's only possible if you have Magician Slayer.
Risk: 3/10. You have an extra person with you in this fight and no great magic. The three points mainly come if you get very careless.
Execution: 5/10. Ringing out Homonculous Lezard is tricky because of the weird hitbox and he moves in an unpredictable fashion that sometimes you just have to guess and hope your angle is correct.

Overall:
5/10. Primarily comes down to the angle of attack really. That's not easy to figure out because the game doesn't give much indicition regarding this. I should note that just winning this fight is easy. Doing it somewhat quickly is trickier.

Lezard Valeth
Preparation: 2/10. Minor prep work; revolves around swapping attacks if you are Alicia or weapons if you are Zunde
Complexity: 5/10. Not too hard to figure out, although I never know when he will prepare Animate Earth
Adaptation: 7/10. Comes down to if you don't knock him far back enough to kill your bait character. Then it gets interesting. Do you try to hug him and build AP? Do you sacrifice your lead, then revive?
Risk: 4/10. You shouldn't be dying at all in this fight but he theoretically can use Animate Earth at lowish HP which will kill you if he does.
Execution: 7/10. Need to get enough knock back just off Cross Slash is tricky. If Zunde, 5/10 because he doesn't have an issue regarding this and its really just timing too dashes right and the rest of your attacks correctly,

Overall:
6/10. Not too terrible. Still considered shameful if you die here because the risk is pretty low and the ideal clear time is less than 90 seconds. Hop behind him, produce enough knockback so he can instantly target and kill your bait character, hop back in for the KO.

Transcended Being
Preparation: 0/10. No menu after Lezard.
Complexity: 5/10. Harder with Zunde because you want to get splash damage from his attacks to reduce the number needed on the crystal. Alicia can't do this and thus doesn't worry about it.
Adaptation: 5/10. Comes down to if he fails to kill your other members in one go and if he teleports since you aim primarily towards the side then the back in this fight.
Risk: 6/10. There's a chance to die if you position your characters in correctly do to the game lying about the extent of the attack zones as well as Splash damage.
Execution: 6/10 for Zunde. All about that primary dash to get extra damage on the crystal. 4/10 on Alicia. Charge Break makes this pretty easy.

Overall:
6/10. Not too bad and about the same as Lezard actually. The optimal way is plenty simple: hop in between boss and crystal then attack. Charge Break after he kills everyone else, then stun him again to break the crystal. If something goes wrong though, fight instantly becomes much more challenging.

Anarchic Entity
Preparation: 8/10. Most complex menu in the game sans Evolver since you have to do many things.
Complexity: 7/10. Various HP thresholds to learn, as well as which attacks to use and their timing in a combo string.
Adaptation: 8/10. The entire fight comes down to what load outs you have available and even then, there are some parts in the fight that you have to improvise.
Risk: 4/10 if doing safe strats. 8/10 if doing risky strats. Safe strats involve using Brahms and Toughness on Valk which makes it really hard to get killed. You have to make several serious mistakes for this to occur. Risky strats usually involve only Valk and may include the Bloody Patch, in which case getting countered or caught in an attack zone is instant death.
Execution: 4/10 if doing safe strats, 8/10 if doing risky strats. Safe strats don't really have much of this since you can mistime attacks and still be okay. If doing risky strats, mistiming an attack can be instantly fatal.

Overall:
8/10. The risky one round involves using the Bloody Patch and you dash behind his back in the first move through a chain dash. Then after he kills everyone, you one round him. Timing is key because every attack must hit and you must OTG to get *just* enough AP for the last Spiral Pierce.

6/10 if doing safe strats. Low risk of dying but you still want to execute quickly, which can sometimes be tricky depending on the attacks he uses.

[Tide]

Shadow Hearts 3 stuff. A good refresher for me in any case. Not as many bosses but some other forced fights worth mentioning.

Dark One
Preparation: 0/10 - What menu?
Complexity: 2/10 - Not much to learn in this fight really. Good starting point to try and read enemy stock though the game helps out with this too.
Adaptation: 2/10 - There's a minor variation depending on how many strikes you get, but it just alters when you execute the Double
Risk: 3/10 - While unlikely, you can die if you mistime too many rings. But even hitting standard rings and not strikes, you're good. So you pretty much have to be half asleep or make a really fatal error.
Execution: 6/10 - The fastest way to win his is a 3 round and involves hitting all strikes. If you miss a strike, then you're likely to end up with a 4 round. 5 round if you miss too many strikes.

Overall
3/10 - About the same start as VP2; more execution oriented, but less alternatives basically. Strike zones aren't as pronounced yet but they will very soon. Enjoy this moment of the game letting you play sloppy.

Ignoriak
Preparation: 2/10. Slap a Heal Stellar onto Natan or Johnny. That's about it.
Complexity: 5/10. You need to be able to learn what can combo into what here and knowing when to heal does become important since dying impacts Stock negatively.
Adaptation: 8/10. There are different scenarios depending on how much Stock you spent in previous battles. Also, depending on how the boss targeting goes and how many strikes you get, you want to start your combo off different. To further add to this, you can't deal too much damage, otherwise, you will kill before the combo ends.
Risk: 6/10. You want Johnny/Shania/Frank alive for this fight at least. You need all 4 characters anyway for the ideal finish so that isn't too demanding. He does do a lot of damage though and getting unlucky can cause issues since your revival is limited.
Execution: 8/10. Hitting all strikes helps immensely as your combo needs to not only do 20+ hits, but you also need to kill him with it. Otherwise, you will take a massive counter and probably lose 2+ people.

Overall
6.5/10. We're only the second fight in and the game is showing no mercy already. The ideal finish is to kill Ignoriak with a 20 hit combo that ends on Frank's Ninja Star. This combo deals between 220-250 damage so being able to estimate from the displayed HP bar is important too. The major problem is that the combo's damage fluctuates based on how many strikes you get. So you have to ask yourself: How confident am I at hitting all the strike zones here? As you will see, many of the fights following ask this question. The entire run is basically a giant game of chicken. This fight gets added complexity too depending on how much stock you have before entering the fight AND you want to end the fight off with Shania have about 50% of stock remaining. Talk about demanding!

Tatanaka
Preparation: 5/10. Presetting a lot of equipment onto Frank/Natan and Shania. Shania needs both the Leather Cap and Leather Belt but you also equip all the new weapons on everyone else. The Schofield II you hopefully got from Ignoriak to save some money. Set Shania to have 4 attacks because it is important in this battle.
Complexity: 7/10. It's set to drain your stock if you have at least a full bar, so you ideally don't enter this fight at 100%. Past that, you will learn to love the Defend command here because of the massive damage reduction and quick recharge time.
Adaptation: 8/10. There are basically 8 different ways this fight can play out (Shania having 0-50% stock, 50-100% stock, 100-150% stock and 200% stock - and whether or not she goes first or second in each case). Stock generation is also effected based on damage you deal so you need to be able to adapt if you don't generate enough metre as estimated.
Risk: 8/10 - Miss hitting a Double? You are probably dead. Have less than 50 HP when it Doubles and not defending? You are probably dead. Have less than 39 HP on a normal turn? You may die if you take a crit.
Execution: 8/10 - You need about an 80% strike rate in this fight in order to win. Miss too many strikes? You are probably dead

Overall
7.5/10. I pity anyway learning this game and not being ready for it because this fight is during the easy part of the game and it is still ridiculous. You need an 80% strike rate or Shania will run out of Sanity. Then you need to be able to manage stock well enough so that you hopefully get doubles on turns where he is about to double. Missing a ring here will kill you because he's highly damaging. Also, sometimes he will crit you and you will just die because the amount of HP you have in between doubles is set so that you can tank one attack only usually. If you miss too many strikes you have to improvise, which means changing Shania back to a human and then working from there. Very nasty overall.


Capone's Elite Gangsters
Preparation: 3/10 - Small menu involving a shop. Soul Charge Tatanaka to Level 2
Complexity: 5/10 - The guys with red shirts are weak to fire and the ones with green shirts are weak to earth. Sometimes you can't really see them though. Also, this fight teaches you a lot about positioning and trying to get optimal firing angles as well as recharge times. Those gangsters are fast!
Adaptation: 9/10 - The positions are random, starting turn order is random and the ring status they inflict is random (but really suck!). This is essentially a random battle of sorts but tends to be harder because they have a lot of HP, the status can be crippling and you can lose a lot of time from them. Doing this quickly really tests you into knowing how to get as many targets as possible and working around recharge times.
Risk: 4/10 - I've never actually died, but its quite possible if you are too sloppy. Johnny and Shania need to live here but that's not too difficult.
Execution: 4/10 - You can set technical rings on Johnny and Natan but they're not too important right now. Hitting strikes will speed this up, but really, the positioning, turn order and opening stock matter more.

Overall:
5/10. Finally, something easier. This is also more of a random battle feel than a boss feel though. It's a tricky fight, but not so much as a difficult one which can kill you. Still needs practice though.

Ronwei
Preparation: 5/10 - Minor menuing involving Stellars. Stellars are the hardest parts of any menu btw since they are unintuitive. Technical rings on Johnny and Mao. Rage stellar on Johnny. Spikes on Shania
Complexity: 5/10 - Ronwei is set to focus on the people who have stock to drain it. If Shania has the Spikes equipped and 1 stock level, he will basically spend the entire fight targeting her, making him predictable and easier to handle
Adaptation: 4/10 - See above. Still some variation based on opening stocks but...
Risk: 4/10 - You probably can die - I've never seen it though
Execution: 6/10 - A case where hitting strikes speeds up the fight but isn't so critical that you will die if you miss too many.

Overall
5/10. Similar to the last fight, this is tricky but not really difficult. You start using technical rings at this point so the demand in execution starts becoming more important. This fight is also relatively predictable due to his AI algorithm. Enjoy it while it lasts because the next few fights are not going to be as simple.

Procyon
Preparation: 8/10 - STELLARS! More of it here. Johnny and Hilda switch charts while Mao takes Aries. Then you move spells around such that Johnny has Entrance, Hilda has Raise and Johnny has Red Nova. In addition you modify the MP cost on the Entrance node. Then you put on new equipment, swap Hilda to a technical ring and put the Bhodi bracelet on Johnny.
Complexity: 5/10 - The general rules of the fight are not too difficult to learn. He's immune to physicals so you stick to mostly spells and avoid Doubles at all cost since there's where he gets the AoE. AND it paralyzes
Adaptation: 8/10 - This fight can be very random outside of the standard factors. He tends to focus on one person until dead so you can try to take advantage of that, but it isn't guaranteed. There's a lot of on the spot thinking because the general plan aside, it can be difficult to determine what the best move is at times.
Risk: 8/10 - The first fight of the game where dying is truly a concern. Avoid getting caught by Doubles at all cost!
Execution: 8/10 - This is one of the fights that while you can win by never hitting a strike zone, you REALLY want to hit it all the time. It goes down in 2 turns if you get the Strike on Entrance and Thorn Whip. If you don't, it can take a lot longer and you have more and more variables to juggle (Johnny and Hilda's MP, Johnny's SP, Stock on everyone ofc..)

Overall
8/10. This fight sucks and requires a lot of practice. There's no predictable pattern and he will face wreck you if he starts getting doubles. You need to be able to drop him quickly or he will make you regret it. This is the first boss to really do this.

La Sirene
Preparation: 5/10 - Menu involving equipping a new belt on Shania, Poison 1 on Added Effect and the most important: using the Seal of Power and Vitality at some point before the boss fight in a random battle.
Complexity: 4/10 - It has a limited number of moves and unlike Tatanaka, this fight is less demanding.
Adaptation: 6/10 - Stock levels matters as well as opening turns. Past that, depends on whether or not you land Poison. Fight can be close at times, so you also need to know what the safe HP threshold mark is and plan around it if you can't end in a Defend.
Risk: 6/10. You can certainly die to this fight, although the primary reason is less to do with the boss outplaying you. The main issue is your item management and how many Thera Seeds you have left in the tank.
Execution: 5/10 - Standard fare. Don't drop critical rings. However, it's not necessary to land a single strike here, so less demanding again.

Overall
5/10. A fight you can lose to if you get reckless or forget to keep an eye on your item stock. It's not too bad otherwise. Thankfully, because we have enough fights that do suck coming up.


McMagnus Gangster series
Preparation: 8/10. More Stellar charts. This is the most complex menu because you have a menu before Ricardo and then another menu after. The menus are different but they both involve moving Stellars around, so it's a pain. Also restocking on items and guessing how many of each you may need.
Complexity: 5/10. The fights are overall not too bad to understand. You use Bright Rage and Hail Dust for the fights and you need to take pictures. However...
Adaptation: 8/10. Where you take the pictures is another story. You have to do it when you're "safe" and this can be hard to gauge since sometimes this can be a case of having 3 enemies left (if they are grouped together) or when there is only one. Also, the formations are different every time and it has a huge impact on what you do. Opening turn orders and stock matters too since that dictates the degree of execution you may need on attacking.
Risk: 7/10 before Ricardo. Believe it or not, these fights are legit risks. Mao is stuck with old armor due to money so she dies rather quickly, as do Johnny and Hilda. You really have to take out the groups quickly and avoid situations where they have stock like the plague or they will just combo you to death. 5/10 after. Ricardo having better armor makes a huge deal. He is also only 3HKO'd and you have more levels by then on both Johnny/Shania/Hilda.
Execution: 6/10. Varies on formation and turn order. In some cases, hitting a strike is critical. In other cases, you can circumvent the need for a strike with an Entrance or a Surge but this depends entirely on your confidence (more game of Chicken). Overall feel is that its about a 6 - you will want Strikes more often than not in any case.

Overall
6.5/10. A nasty set of fights all things considered. It's harder than the one before hand because you can quite reasonably die and recovering is sometimes difficult. There's a larger demand on Strikes too since for example, a strike Bright Rage kills the skinny gangsters from a Johnny but a regular one won't.


Malice Edna
Preparation: 5/10 - Ricardo goes on offense this one time because Malice Edna simply has too much HP. You also use Arc Surge so get that Wolf Statue to the next level. While you're at it, charge Thunderbird's stats too. Slap SP Atk down on Shania too if you want.
Complexity: 5/10 - She's all magic so that's why you just do Arc Barrier/SP Atk Down. Also, she has a limit with Surge.
Adaptation: 8/10 - You're on your own outside of the general plan cause whether or not you have stock depends on how well the gangster fights went. Then there's a question of what Malice Edna opens with. Mental breakdown is fine later but awful early. You need to squeeze turns for Shania to drop Arc Surge at some point and Ricardo to drop Arc Barrier as well.
Risk: 5/10 - She's more docile - I've never seen her use a Double even when she has 1 stock. Still, can be dangerous if you let the fight prolong just due to juggling needed resources.
Execution: 8/10 - A fight where you want to hit the Strike Entrance and the Strike on your Fire spells consistently. This considerably speeds up the fight.

Overall
5/10 for just normal wins. Again, her being docile helps. Having Arc barrier and Sp Atk Down can completely neuter her to boot (lol 16 damage to Johnny?), although the latter is rather luck dependent.

7/10 for fast finishes. The extra 2 points is all on hitting the strikes on Red Nova and Red Bounce. You have to squeeze the occasional Arc Cure here and there but for the most part, it's more execution based, but not as punishing if you don't succeed.

Jeb Negias
Preparation: 5/10. There's some minor stellar stuff, but the important thing is to stick Evil Shade on Hilda. Poison on Shania is highly recommended.
Complexity: 3/10. Not much to really learn.
Adaptation: 5/10. Averaging the scores of 3 and 7. It's a 3 if you get Deadly Poison because he will kill himself for you and is the fastest way possible to win but the chances aren't too great. 7 otherwise since you need to squeeze in turns between healing to casting Entrance/Surge on Hilda and trying to hit Strike zones to down him quickly.
Risk: 6/10. Standard effect with the added boost of him stalling you to death from resources.
Execution: 7/10. A case of Malice Edna more or less, made a little easier due to Poison.

Overall
6/10. Poison saves the day and is super cool here. There's an option to actually Gale Shania so she can attack more for more chances at landing it. Otherwise, it's standard affair here - avoid doubles, entrance Hilda, blow up the world.

End of North America arc, time for South America. South America is where all the fights gets ridiculous.

Kefure
Preparation: 7/10. More stellar shuffling since you put Mao back in and you need to shift some stuff around IIRC.
Complexity: 3/10. Pretty simple in the optimal case. He prefers casting Gale and Poisonx2 as his opening actions. Despite that sounding like giving you many openings, the recharge time means he gets to do this in like 2 turns. But that is still 2 turns wasted.
Adaptation: 5/10. If the fight goes on for more than 4 rounds, you are probably dead. Thankfully, 4 turns is quite a few opportunities for Hilda to kill him
Risk: 8/10. Don't drop rings. Execute or die pretty much but this time, you have to do it with a technical ring while it is invisible...
Execution: 9/10. Hit strikes or probably get faced wrecked. Also, if you miss a ring completely, you are in deep.

Overall
7.5/10. RICHARD approved boss that aims to POIZN you. Optimally, you Entrance Hilda, combo to her twice and hit strikes on everything to 2HKO. If you get a chance to Surge, you can miss the Strike on one Entrance Thorn Whip combo. If you fail to kill him after 3 rounds, it's pretty dangerous and coming back from this is usually not possible due to Gale and needing to juggle around poison too. If its past 4 rounds, you are probably dead since he would have gotten so many actions and doubles, there's very little chance to survive. You could potentially win, but it will still be with Hilda only so its a hollow victory as it requires you to make up the experience afterwards.


Killer and Dadoros
Preparation: 7/10. More stellars. Boost Ice effectiveness on Virgo and slap Poison 2 on Shania while Poison 1 goes on Ricardo. 
Complexity: 7/10. The introduction of buff counters as well as for the first time in awhile, 2 boss targets. Also, they can combo into each other so you start learning the important of reviving people who are spread out vs. just those who can get a turn sooner.
Adaptation: 8/10. Each time you buff, there is a 1/6 chance for Arc Rage to occur and Arc Rage will wreck you almost instantly. There's also the question of stock values because this fight can be simple if you actually have stock. Chances are though you won't since the dungeon's enemies love draining it.
Risk: 10/10. I wager this is probably the scariest fight in the game. It's over within the first 3 rounds more or less. You either take out Killer within that time or he proceeds to combo with Dadoros and does overkill damage to 3/4s of your party. You also pretty much instantly lose if you see an Arc Rage and Hilda dies before getting to act. Stock is super important here since you can combo to Hilda and get the extra turns you need to win.
Execution: 9/10. If you hit the Strike on an Entranced Hail Dust, Killer dies to the next Shania attack or next regular Hail Dust. Easy 2HKO. However, this is again, hitting the strikes perfectly on an invisible ring. If you miss, you still 2HKO, but Shania won't help you so Hilda has to survive another round and well, see above regarding the risks in this fight. You have to adapt to it, but its possible.

Overall
9.5/10. This is a nasty fight. Note that it may be possible to recover if he does a Double Combo and ends up only killing 1 person. In this case, there is enough associated lag that you can recover from it. It's still very dangerous to let Killer live for more than a few rounds so even though Dadoros is a more tempting target with his turn cheating and buff counters, Killer should probably go down first. I haven't touched much on Dadoros but he's a weenie by himself. Susceptible to Poison and you can also Entrance Hilda with Red Bounce to promote a faster kill here too.

Delget
Preparation: 3/10. Gale Blast on Hilda as well and Petrification blockers on everyone.
Complexity: 5/10. Oh hey, Energy Charge! He's mostly about high ST physical damage. And ST is meh.
Adaptation: 5/10. Some more on the fly fun, but for the most part, it's all within the general game plan.
Risk: 5/10. The main issue is making sure everyone is alive by the end. I haven't personally died to this fight because it's so ST oriented and he's not a Wild ARMS 4 boss so uh...
Execution: 7/10. You're still dealing with Invisible technical rings. This fight is less punishing if you miss, but really want to hit the strikes anyway for faster battles.

Overall
6/10. A bit of a breather after Killer. Not bad, but it isn't a free fight obviously. Mostly ST helps in reducing how dangerous he is, but the need to still hit strikes for the fastest time means that you can't get sloppy really.

Killer (2nd)
Preparation: 9.5/10. The longest menu and has Stellars in it. Also, you need to juggle stock the entire way through the dungeon, so yeah, the prep work here is actually quite demanding.
Complexity: 7/10. He has a trigger point for Gale which you want to take advantage of due it lag time after casting it. Also, learning that he's somewhat patternized in his behavior helps a little.
Adaptation: 8/10. Opening turn order and Stock levels are heavily emphasized here. Optimally, Johnny has 200% stock, but that's not likely. Past that, if you don't get a quick kill, you're pretty much on your own, and most of the time, you'll be scrambling like rats to recover only to get 1 other shot to kill.
Risk: 10/10. Very very high chances to lose. You're even supposed to equip 2 Replacement men here if you have the funds. That's how dangerous this is.
Execution: 9.5/10. You OHKO him if you get the Perfect on the rings. If you miss even one, you will only 2HKO, although depending on how injured he is, it alters the follow up and lets you possibly kill him with Shania vs. Hilda.

Overall
9.5/10. The fight itself is a little easier than Killer the first time. However, the difficulty is the same due to the prep work in managing stock levels before the fight. You really want to OHKO him because this fight is equally deadly as the first. Just now you have Replacement Men but they will disappear after one use so it's not like its a free pass. The fact that he has Red Gravity is what really pushes this over though because being stuck at 0 Stock in this fight is just miserable. You can't keep up with his damage at all, so you're best bet is to just one shot him. And you can! If you get the strike on Entrance, Surge and Hail Dust. Oh and invisible technical rings but you knew this already.

[Tide]

Short additions this time - with an edit possibly coming later

Tamaris (aka BabyRage)
Preparation:  4/10 - You have to preserve Slim Mask Hilda through the dungeon and you want to use the Seal of Speed at some point before the fight. That's about it though. If Johnny used the Replacement Man during the second Killer fight, you can slot another accessory on him but you don't replace it with another one.
Complexity: 4/10 - Despite the fact that he also counters buffs, it's less complex than the first Killer fight because he only uses either Barrier or Shield. Spirit Ward is used if his HP is below 30% or so. He's also vulnerable to Blood Loss, but you are unlikely to have that.
Adaptation: 7/10 - You're on your own for most of it, but the general plan covers most of what you need to do and what to be aware of.
Risk:  5/10 - Can die, but not as likely, You have to play a little sloppy as far as I am aware.
Execution: 5/10 - Strangely enough, you do not need to hit all strikes. You want to 2HKO him since a OHKO is not possible. Just chip around him with castings of Entranced Evil Shade from Hilda and then kill it before he can do Spirit Ward.

Overall
5/10 - A breather again after a difficult fight. Enjoy this by the way. Once you enter the gate, shit gets real and the demand for making the correct decisions and perfect execution spike up to the point where there is no room for failure. About the only real hard part is that you want to minimize stock use, which isn't too difficult since you don't need the "Do or die" one combo (as he can't be one shotted)

Malice Killer
Preparation:  9.5/10 - Before this fight, you have to track down a whole bunch of stuff including Energy Charge, Magic Key Hilding and the Demon Earrings. Then have to do a complete equip swap where Hilda gets the Demon Earrings, Mind's Eye and Replacement Man. Johnny picks up all of Hilda's Magic accessories (Warlock Earrings and Magic Mind's Eye) as well as the Flare Brooch. Ricardo needs to block Seal (Cosmic Bracelet). As for Shania, she has a choice but I prefer to have her be more designated for tanking so I give her the Leonardo's Bear, Cosmic Bracelet as well as the Small Jug for the stat boost. Hilda also needs to go to three attacks and P-Atk Down should be on Hilda while P-Def down should be on Shania. Make sure to swap Ricardo to a Technical Ring a well. You also need to buy a bunch of Hit Expands for Hilda, which is effected by the discount ring and finally, need to swap Stellars around such that Johnny has Hilda's old chart (Virgo) while Ricardo has Johnny's old chart (Sagittarius). While you are in the shop, restock on Revival / status healing / consumables too. Whew.
Complexity: 6.5/10 - Killer has a trigger at about 50% where he will go into Energy Charge -> Physical. If you inflict P.Atk down before this and are at full health, you can safely tank this (as long as it is not on Hilda). Past that, watch out for Seal as it can come at an inopportune time. Putting Hilda at the first or last spot can help but not a lot.
Adaptation: 8/10 - The key thing to watch out for is Malice Blade. Nothing else will kill you faster. It has a super fast recharge time, deals lots of damage and drains stock. Red Gravity is nasty too since it prolongs the fight and gives Malice Killer more chances to use Malice Blade, but is manageable for the most part. What you do in this fight largely depends on whether or not he does Malice Blade. You may need to cast Gale too on occasion to boost character turns around. Since you swapped charts, you need to support two characters no instead of one.
Risk:  9/10 - Pretty high chances of dying. For the most part, having stock can help mitigate this and let you two round him. Being at zero stock though can often be very dangerous.
Execution: 8/10 - If you hit the strikes, this fight can end quickly. It's a bit more lenient in that you won't OHKO him, so there is never a demand to always hit strikes. But your really want to here because you want it to end quickly. Also, Hilda now has the Mind's eye so you have to get used to her attack zones. Hope you have a lot of hit expands. The one bit of good news is that Hilda gets to go back to a standard ring. Lucky you!

Overall
9/10 - It's a Killer fight, so you know it won't be easy. Comparing the three times you fight him, this might be the easiest but it is hard to tell. You have Awaker and making Johnny into a mage means you have two avenues for offense now instead of just one. Still, he hits really hard and it can be difficult to come back if you have no stock. Strangely enough, you have a bigger chance of success in this fight if you just go for a blitzkrieg. Ignoring healing as much as possible seems or draining his own stock seems to produce much more consistent rates of winning. This is probably due to having two viable avenues of offense, but it can't be overstated how important stock is for these last series of fights. At least you don't conserve it here.

Malice Soakers
Preparation:  6/10 - If you removed the Warning Device, put it back on. Remove Small Jug on Shania and give it to Hilda if you used your Replacement Man (otherwise, she can hold on to it). After Gilbert, you need to turn Hilda into Curvy Mask and then preserve it for the remaining three forced fights. Optional to remove Flare Brooch on Johnny and swapping it for a Cosmic Bracelet.
Complexity: 4/10 - They hit things really hard with magic. And are immune to magic. You didn't think we changed Hilda to a bat just because of Malice Killer, right? Also, the recharge time is crazy fast, so be aware of that.
Adaptation: 7/10 - The ideal scenario is to get Hilda a turn with Energy Charge up so she can take them down quickly. If you have Rage up as well, she one shots them. Unfortunately, this is not always possible because of how frail Hilda is. A technical Strike barrier helps but sometimes you just have to luck out. 
Risk:  8/10 - The kicker for these fights is that you really want to conserve Stock. This means that in some cases, you are not allowed to Combo or Double where you normally can. That makes these things a whole lot more difficult since they also hit really hard.
Execution: 7/10 - Pretty standard fare. The Double Energy Charge into Physical is a little bit more lenient due to going back to a standard ring, but it is still invisible. Johnny and Ricardo still want to hit strikes on their technical rings almost all the time still for the buffs/heals to be more effective.

Overall
7.5/10 - Pretty challenging for what appears to be just randoms. These things hit really hard and it can be difficult to recover from since they boss recharge times meaning everything is like 50% faster. The fact that they can't be hit with magic hurts too since you are forced to keep Bat Hilda alive and did I mention how much I hate Bat Hilda's durability? Because it really makes this a lot more challenging than it should be. Maintaining stock adds to the difficulty here, but at least the fights get a little easier after the first tree. You will have higher levels and later on, get to use Curvy Mask, which makes the last fights easier.

Malice Gilbert
Preparation:  5/10 - Small Jug on Hilda. Johnny has a choice between Cosmic Bracelet, Flare Brooch or Replacement Man if Hilda didn't use hers. You want to have 3 Replacement Man at minimum in stock after equipping everything. Also optional are giving Shania Sp.Atk Down although it doesn't help a ton for this fight necessarily.
Complexity: 8/10 - Pretty difficult to figure out what you're actually trying to do at first. It took me about 3 days. You ultimately want to land an Energy Charge'd 3rd Key on Gilbert. Sounds easy, but there's a problem. The Third Key can't be used in a Double with Energy Charge. This is kind of what makes this fight a total hell.
Adaptation: 7/10 - If you don't get the quick kill, it is possible to recover IF you've done enough damage with the key. Awaker's Bright Oracle can do a fair bit of damage here too with Entrance and Hilda herself can still do Double Energy Charged Physicals. However, since Gilbert hits so hard, you often have to play perfectly to recover from it. Most of the time, if you fail the quick kill, you just die.
Risk:  10/10 - http://www.twitch.tv/tideruglia/v/26893280. This fight in a nutshell.
Execution: 10/10 - This is probably the first time where you MUST hit a strike. Hilda only survives if you get the strike on a technical Barrier. With it, she'll live through Deep grudge by the skin of her teeth. It also helps to hit the strike on Energy Charge, but you can supplement it with a combo from Awaker's Bright Oracle or Rage if you fail. The Key MUST do at least 4000 damage. To make matters worse, you HAVE to finish this fight in under 6 Gilbert turns. This means you better hope that not only does he NOT go on a Panic spree, but you also don't have to deal with trying to recover since recovering from a Gilbert first turn is very difficult. I haven't even touched on handling the invisible ring on a Third Key yet, have I?

Overall
10/10 - Did I say Killer 1 was the hardest fight? I take that back, this one is WORSE. Not only can you get instantly killed, but even in the off chance you SURVIVE, there are times where recovering from it is impossible. Not only do you have to kill him, you have to do it in 6 turns. Keeping in mind he high 2HKOs you and has boss recharge values (so 50% faster), this is a fight that goes south ridiculously quickly. You really want to have Stock on one person, but preferable if its Johnny or Ricardo since they are the fastest. As long as your 3rd Key does enough damage, you can probably win. However, if you drop the 3rd key and miss too many hits, you won't make it. It's faster to take the death at that point since Lady is impossible without a second 3rd Key and a 5th Key. And you thought all the Killer fights were bad.


Lady
Preparation:  6.5/10 - Replacement Man on everyone. Theoretically, most of the scores in the gate should be higher since you do a lot of stuff beforehand just for the gate battles, but I digress. 1.5 higher than average because of managing stock before this fight. Ideally, you walk into this fight with 200% stock on everyone. However, you want at least 100% on Shania/Johnny/Ricardo.
Complexity: 7/10 - This isn't an overly complex fight. Don't buff because you'll eat a Lost Progress. You pretty much die everytime Lady or Umbral acts so its just a question of how to revive, and stretching out a combo.
Adaptation: 7/10 - The adaptation element comes mainly on opening turn order as well as who has stock and who doesn't. There isn't a whole lot you can do if you mess up, but it is possible to come back if you only missed 1 hit on the keys. You are allowed to miss up to 2 but it gets really really risky. Missing more than 2 hits is guaranteed death. There is too much HP to chop down. 
Risk:  10/10 - MT OHKOs everywhere. Well not quite everywhere, but Johnny always dies if he's not in Awaker form. Every one of Lady's attacks deals about 275 damage. You have roughly 340 HP. Since your healing is trash without doubling up on it, you basically always die in the opening turns. In some ways, this is good (more on this later). However, there is very little leeway in coming back. You mess up once, it's probably over.
Execution: 10/10 - The very definition of a pure execution fight. If you land the big combos into the 5th Key and 3rd Key, you'll do enough damage usually to one round. You want to hit strikes on the Keys as much as you can, but it's not easy to hit the strike, even if you only aim for the third zone since by the 5th cycle, the spin rate accelerates and the timing changes.

Overall
9/10 - Not the hardest fight in the game because there isn't a whole lot of learn. It is pretty much a do or die fight with one way and one way only. You spin the 5th and 3rd Keys, get all the hits on it off a large combo and it should register enough damage for a KO or come very close to it. Dying in the opening rounds is useful because it prevents Lady from casting Cure. Every turn thereafter, you'll need to manage your Replacement Man as best as you can because you need at least a spare one for the Malice Dirge death counter. In theory, it is possible for Curvy Mask Hilda to survive if she has 320 HP or so. However, you would need to land a strike on the Thera Root off an invisible ring. According to LCC, if you hit the strikes on Gale Blast from Awaker, the KO is guaranteed. So yeah, the execution element in this fight is quite high. The easiest way to get over this is to buy a good guitar for Ricardo before this fight so he can actually register on the damage scale.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Risk:  10/10 - http://www.twitch.tv/tideruglia/v/26893280. This fight in a nutshell.

Yeeeep.

[Tide]

I updated the last post to include Lady now. So SH3 is done. Gonna look at Wild ARMS 4 next - execution element in battles is not relevant here since it's not very demanding. So only 4 criteria - gonna take a look at many bosses, but if there are other battles I think are notable, I'll talk about it some.

Tony 1
Preparation: 0/10. What menu?
Complexity: 4/10. Mainly from EXP management. If you can pass the kill to Arnaud without wasting time, that is optimal. Otherwise, you need to remember that Arnaud didn't get the kill bonus, and thus, less EXP.
Adaptation: 2/10. The two points are for Tony's random spawn location
Risk: 3/10. For the possibility of losing Jude or Arnaud. Dying should be a zero, but losing someone this early does mess things up.

Overall
2.5/10 - Easy opening boss really. Just watching out for how the EXP plays through.


Turasque
Preparation: 4/10. Non-complex menu that just gets Fragile and Class Levels. Comet Strike and Move and Attack for Raquel. Max twink HP.
Complexity: 0/10. lol
Adaptation: 0/10. lol. I've made this a fix fight so you should not need to deviate at all.
Risk: 0/10. Dying in this fight means you are bad and should feel bad

Overall
1/10 - POIZN BREATH. That's about it. There IS a fixed method for what you are supposed to do, so there is no adaptation or tricks you have to learn. Just a menu set up.

Tony 2
Preparation: 2/10 - Not a lot whole. Protect on Yulie. That's about it.
Complexity: 6/10 - He has Blocker, so you need to know the proper way of moving Raquel and positioning. Also, he *does* have counters.
Adaptation: 7/10 - Three ways this can play out based on how Tony moves. The good news is that there are some fixed steps in each movement pattern, so while you have to learn 3 variations, its not pure improv.
Risk: 6.5/10 - Comes mainly from Arnaud/Yulie dying. Mainly Yulie. Arnaud dies if you have a really bad day. Yulie dying happens if you make a mistake mainly.

Overall
5/10 - A fairly average fight. It's not a a hard fight and you are not likely to die, but you can suffer individual character deaths. Yulie dying is pretty bad, but Arnaud dying is the *worst*. Luckily, this rarely happens and the game is in the early stage enough that you can reset if you desire. Taking a character death is bad just because it messes up EXP mapping and you need the EXP for the first hour. Otherwise, just know how to react to each position and it tends to be fine.

Earthbound Dead
Preparation: 3/10 - GET SLOW DOWN. The most important thing in this fight is Slow Down. It will also be important for many coming fights. Sanctify if Yulie is level 6.
Complexity: 7/10 - Slow Down Counters + Ley Point damage bonus + proper positioning
Adaptation: 8/10 - You need to alter what you do depending on where he moves and how much damage you've taken. In general, you counter his Slow Down counter with your own Slow Down. However, because this means you don't really get a turn advantage out of Slow Down, it means you need to be able to evaluate the risk from attacking versus being defensive.
Risk: 7/10 - Definitely can die and definitely can lose characters. At this point, individual deaths are still bad.

Overall
7/10 - Welcome to the first fight in the boss gauntlet. This will set the tone for the next 3 boss fights. Every single one of these fights requires some adaptation and has a change of getting you killed. The only way to get better at these battles is to practice and see a lot of situations. And just think - Earthbound Dead is the easiest part of the gauntlet.

Jeremy 1
Preparation: 3/10. Set Protect back on Yulie if she didn't learn it. Gamble option on Raquel if you choose and Class Levels.
Complexity: 7/10. Counter attacks + knowing the approximate damage rolls + positioning aspects.
Adaptation: 9/10. The counters are really what makes this harder. "But Earthbound Dead countered too". True, but he doesn't counter with 2HKO damage and having 388% average speed. This fight can spiral out of control really really quick, so you need to be able to know how to salvage.
Risk: 8/10. If you focus on keeping Raquel alive, winning becomes more consistent. However, character deaths at this point, are still bad. And keeping everyone alive in this fight is really hard because it ultimately depends on Jeremy moves and how he decides to spread his damage.

Overall
8.5/10. Hard fight, because so much of it is out of your control. This is really more of a reactionary fight than an active one because much of what you do is a counter maneuver around what Jeremy does. Did he move to the centre, then cast Protect on Raquel's HEX then Yulie's HEX. Did he counter? Evaluate HP, then Heal if possible. Speaking of his counters, be careful of those. You need to be able to evaluate the damage he deals versus the HP you have and the way the turn order is lined up. Of course, dying is a real risk here too. Keeping Raquel Protect'd does help mitigate this though.

Miscreation
Preparation: 4/10. Joint Struggle/Jump & Act/Resist Earth. Main skills to watch out for if you have the points for them. You definitely should for Resist Earth. Class Levels otherwise. Most of these menus are not too hard in the first hour since the amount of points you have are still somewhat limited.
Complexity: 7/10. Handling Poison, STONE BULLET COUNTERS, handling character deaths
Adaptation: 8/10. There's a lot of variation on what you need to do because it depends on whether or not he hits you with Stone Bullet. The main adaptation strats are around dealing with people dying because it is very easy to lose people because of that.
Risk: 9.5/10. There is a very real concern about dying in this fight because Stone Bullet just hits so hard. If you get nailed with it without Protect, you're pretty much done.

Overall
8.5/10. Another tough fight, right after Jeremy. The issue this time is less so the speed, and just more so the scale of the damage on those counters. It makes attacking him at any point very dangerous and you need to evaluate on whether or not it is safe to go for it. Again, this come from practice, but sometimes, even if it isn't safe, you have to go for it since Heal Berries aren't good enough healing to hold him off in the long run.

Jeremy 2
Preparation: 0/10. No menu pretty much if you have the set up on Miscreation.
Complexity: 7/10. This is kind of the first fight where you learn about the duration of your spells. Slow Down wearing off at the wrong time is absolutely lethal. Also, remember to keep an eye on
Adaptation: 9/10. Three positions, multiple different ways for this to play out. Why? Because Inertia Cancelling means he effectively takes twice the actions than he should. In essence, this fight trades off speed and counters in return for being able to double act and changing the turn order in some ways you don't expect due to your buffers wearing off at the wrong time (this has happened more times than once). To make things worse, you need to start considering how to spend your FP too since Jump and Act's repositioning aspect is very powerful. If you have Joint Struggle, that's also a possibility, albeit very risky.
Risk: 9/10. Still very likely to die here. If you go safe and stay somewhat spreadout, it's better but overall slower.

Overall
7.5/10. Still no easy fights yet. The first hour of this game is mean. You pretty much grab Heal Berries because this boss gauntlet is so dangerous. The sole aspect that is helpful is that the menus are not too complex. This marks the end of the boss gauntlet mostly.